Precise realist works rule watercolor show

The last time North Carolina artist Dan Smith visited the Charles H. Taylor Arts Center in Hampton, he conjured up a striking solo exhibit that left more than a few gallery goers shaking their heads.

Few shows in Hampton Roads have been as perceptive and perplexing over the years as his 2007 tour de force, which combined painting, sculpture, photography and narrative text in an artful yet taxing examination of the life and legacy of landmark 1600s English explorer Capt. John Smith.

Something similar might have been expected from his most recent visit, when the unconventional artist — whose complex talent includes an award-winning if sometimes unpredictable grasp of watercolor painting — came back to judge the entries for the Virginia Watercolor Society's 33rd annual juried exhibition.

Yet instead of selecting the experimental, the difficult and the unexpected as he had intended, Smith succumbed to the undeniable power of several adeptly rendered if traditional watercolor subjects.

All three top winners, in fact, employ extraordinary technique to transform such conventional fare as still lifes and portraits into remarkable examples of artistic achievement.

"I was amazed by its realism — its jaw-dropping precision," Smith said, describing why he gave Best-in-Show to an eye-catching study of pomegranates and grapes by Fairfax artist Chris Krupinski.

"I literally had to submit to the beauty of this," he added, explaining why Third Place went to a bowl of luminous clementines painted by Harrisonburg artist Brenda Hounshell.

"It was overwhelmingly beautiful."

Such irresistibly delicious experiences crop up often among the exhibit's prize winners, who were selected from 494 entries submitted by 175 artists.

And such strong virtuoso performances — combined with a decided realist bent — make the show a oasis for both fans of outstanding technical skill and anyone tired of the same old, frequently barren attitude that has made novelty for novelty's sake such a dominant part of the contemporary art world.

Just take a look at the stunning image created by Mathews painter Bob Haynes in "Great Egret II," which earned Smith's nod for an Award of Distinction.

Tightly framed and as large as life, this head-and-shoulders portrait makes you focus on the gorgeous colors, lively lines and sensuous textures that give this bird such beauty and character. Its bright orange beak, iridescent green eye and delicately shaded white feathers almost seem to leap off the paper because of the contrast Haynes sets up with a rich sky-blue background.

What results is a seemingly simple image that becomes deeper, more complicated and more rewarding with each additional second of study. Look — especially — at Haynes' breathtaking rendering of the slight changes of colors in the bird's feathers and the elegant serpentine curve he gives to its neck if you want to see the hand of a master.

Similar virtuosity powers Krupinski's big still life, which transforms an apparently casual arrangement of striped fabric, pomegranates, grapes and a silver chalice into a picture that's part still life and part abstract painting.

So arresting are the red and white stripes of the fabric — which continuously bend and change direction as they move across the paper — and the translucent orbs of these unusually plump, 3-dimensional-looking grapes — that you may almost feel as you could reach out and touch real objects rather than the illusions created by Krupinski's deftly painted image.

Hounshell's delicious clementines boast some of the same qualities, beckoning from the paper in such crisp, deceptively lifelike ways that they seem to radiate with the energy and color of actual objects.

But the perceptive Smith also finds to room to celebrate several much more expressive works, including Radford artist Z. L. Feng's ruggedly realistic portrait of "Ford Man" — which won Second Place — and a noticeably sketchy boat painting that earned Great Falls artist Betty Ganley an honorable mention.

"It was a traditional boat composition — docked for repair," Smith explains, "and I found the virtuosity of the watercolor application remarkable."

Erickson can be reached at merickson@dailypress.com and 757-247-4783. Find him at dailypress.com/entertainment/arts and Facebook.com/dpentertainment.